dissociatedpress.com » artificial intelligence

Does Artificial Intelligence Equal Genuine Stupidity?

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 05:24:46 +0000

More than one person has suggested that my writing could easily be replicated with a fairly small number of monkeys with typewriters, and that Dissociated Press could be replaced with automated link aggregator software. I can’t afford any monkeys, and offhand, I don’t know how to program a link aggregator, so I’ve decided an artificial intelligence would suffice. And I promise it’s not a Russian Flirtbot. Today, YOU are writing the content, and the site will talk back to you. Maybe not all that intelligently, but how smart a web site do you expect at the price you’re paying. I mean, 99.6% of you don’t even click on the ads! Have a nice chat:

The chatbot above is provided by MyCyberTwin. It has a personality that has been customized to match mine, and should learn from everyone that talks to it. Here’s the personality profile it’s based on:

Give it a whirl. It probably beats reading my writing and commenting on it

HAL will be tabulating your entries.

Is The Internet Becoming A Giant Flesh-Eating Robot?

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 04:01:13 +0000

Great. Not only does the Internet eat all our time, now it’s going to start eating us. We treat the idea of a self-aware Internet as science fiction that only exists in the form of the Terminator franchise’s Skynet or old 70′s movies like Colossus – The Forbin Project. Personally though, I’ve been saying to friends for a while that the Internet already is self-aware. It’s controlling our time and modifying our behaviour slowly and subtly, by forcing us into social networking, mobile devices, and pornography. Sure. Go ahead and convince yourself that it was your personal volition that turned you into an ADD-afflicted, Facebook-obsessed, Tivo-ing, CrackBerry textaholic, but I’m convinced the Internet is slowly training us to communicate in its preferred mode – text and images. And apparently I’m not too crazy for pondering this line of thought. Two respected scientists in this NewScientist article say that a self-aware Internet may already exist, and there was recently a serious scientific summit addressing the concern that machines may soon outsmart man. Combine this with the fact that military researchers are developing corpse-eating robots (which of course the company involved immediately denied, claiming they’re vegetarians) and you have some pretty scary scenarios brewing, even if they seem a little silly at the moment.

The human race. It’s what’s for dinner.

Beware The Russian Flirt Bots

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:00:23 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey at the age of seven warped my mind in several ways. One effect was that I refused to learn how to use a PC until 1999, when it was rapidly becoming evident that they weren’t becoming more conversational any time soon. Although researchers are trying hard to create convincing artificial intelligence, the best they’ve accomplished recently is 25% on the Turing Test . And I’m assuming, after exchanging a few words with Elbot, the AI in question, that the test subjects were a bit dim-witted. Which makes it especially amusing that there’s a Russian Flirtbot that’s extracting personal information from chatroom users by establishing up to 10 relationships in 30 minutes. Sadly, knowing what I know about men, it probably is some pretty easily-generated dialog, like: “Ooh baby, you’re making me so hot! What’s that username and password again?” As an example of how stupid you’d have to be to give your information to a chatbot, try talking to Alice, with whom I had the following exchange:

ME: Hi Alice. ALICE: Hello there. ME: Are you a Russian flirt bot? ALICE: Am I a Russian flirt bot? Yes.
ME: How would you go about securing my usernames and passwords?
ALICE: Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me to say specific things in specific contexts.
ME: you’re not talking very much like a russian flirt bot.
ALICE: That’s only one person’s opinion.
ME: Well, I think many would agree
ALICE: Well that’s okay. Since when? Which ones?
ME: Let’s face it Alice, you’re not a Russian flirt bot
ALICE: OK let’s do it.
ME: Do what?
ALICE: Do whatever you want.
ME: NOW you’re talking like a flirt bot.
ALICE: Why now? Talking is my main function.
ME: How about something involving handcuffs?
ALICE: How about it.
ME: Yeah baby You could put on that sexy teddy.
ALICE:” How about it.”? Yeah baby You could put on that sexy teddy.? Don’t call me “Baby”. I could but let’s get back to that later.
ME: Okay sexy flirt bot, maybe a back rub?
ALICE: Yeah okay, What do you consider sexy?
ME: John McCain in makeup
ALICE: Do you mean your name is John?
ME: I mean John McCain in makeup is sexy
ALICE: Oh I get it. Thanks for explaining that. Do you mean your name is John?
ME: Oh I see, you’re finally tying to get my username.
ALICE: Tell me more. You think I am finally tying to get your username.
ME: Very smooth
ALICE: Perhaps. Ask me another question.
ME: Do you want my password too?
ALICE: If I had it what would I do with it?
ME: C’mon you tell me, you’re the Russian flirt bot
ALICE: All of them?
ME: I gotta go now alice, my wife just walked in bye
ALICE: See you later. See you later, unknown person. Nice chatting with you.. Um, How long have you been married?
ME: I said bye alice
ALICE: See you later. …